January 2025 – Nomadic Noesis

Do One Thing: Farmers’ Market

Can a bag of onions make a meaningful difference in the world? I sure hope so!

I know many of us are searching for ways to make a positive impact right now in a time when a lot of things are going very wrong. While we might not experience many opportunities to take big actions, every one of us can do one thing. And those individual contributions add up.

I’ve come to believe community building needs to be an essential focus right now. One specific part of that is supporting local businesses and local agriculture. It’s becoming more vital every day to reinforce strong local food systems.

For a while, I had a subscription to an every-other-week produce box through a local store’s community supported agriculture program. But that was not working out for me logistically, so I cancelled a while back. My little city has a nice, largish, year-round farmer’s market, as well as some smaller seasonal ones. I kept telling myself I should hit them up for some of my food. But even thinking about it made my anxiety spike.

The big market, at least, is a perfect storm of social anxiety and sensory issues for me. I would have to deal with a lot of noise, bustle and crowds while trying to make decisions in a setting where I wasn’t sure of the rules or expectations. That’s every one of my buttons pushed, right there in one go.

But then I made a plan. A bite-sized plan. I could get myself used to farmers’ market shopping and learn the ropes by starting small. All I had to do was go in and buy one item, then leave. Still an improvement over no items from local farmers.

And I did it Saturday morning! I was a little overwhelmed, but I wore my Loop earplugs to minimize noise, looked around for one clearly marked item that I needed, found the onions, and paid. Then I went on to the usual grocery store for the rest of my shopping trip. It’s a start. I can keep taking more steps.

What if we all looked for one step each day or each week? How much difference could we make? Let’s try it and see! Let’s go!

Remembering Coretta Scott King

“What most did not understand then was that I was not only married to the man I loved, but I was also married to the movement that I loved.” – Coretta Scott King

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I’d like to take a couple of minutes to think about the person who, perhaps more than any other, made sure the message and the work of social justice continued after his death. Coretta Scott King was married to Martin Luther King, Jr. for 15 years, a full partner in leading the movement for peace and equal rights.

For another 38 years after his death, she continued leading the charge not only in the U.S., but around the world. This is taken from The King Center website. That would be The King Center that Coretta Scott King founded.

“One of the most influential African-American leaders of her time, Mrs. King received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities; authored two books, edited a compilation of selected quotes by Dr. King, maintained a nationally-syndicated newspaper column, and served on and helped found dozens of organizations, including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.

Mrs. King died on January 30, 2006. She was the first woman and the first African American to lay in honor in the rotunda of the Georgia capitol. Also, a few days after her death, thousands of people stood in line in the rain to pay their respects at a viewing in the heritage sanctuary of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.“

The Kings taught us a lot about the importance of unity, community, and standing together with the oppressed. I believe those principles are more important today than ever.

On Today’s Walk: Toasty Fingers

For the past couple of weeks, I have been driving my car to get from point A to point B on most trips. I was becoming desperate for a walk in the fresh air. So despite the arctic temperatures

Screenshot show 11 degrees F, feels like -1 degree F

along with lingering patches of snow and ice from our recent winter storms, I took myself out for a short ramble around my immediate neighborhood this afternoon.

It was too cold to take many photos, but I did click one in an attempt to capture the feel of things.

Sidewalk, street and yard with patches of snow and significant ice.

Yep, that’s Winter with a capital “W.” But I know how to layer up. And now, I have something that’s a game changer for wintertime strolls.

My husband found a nice post-holiday sale on electric gloves. He ordered a pair for each of us.

Pair of black electric gloves with power light on.

No matter how insulated I was able to keep everything else, I always had cold fingers outside when the temp dipped below about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. But no more! These battery-powered beauties kept my digits toasty.

Now I only need to find some kind of electric nose tip warmer and I’ll be completely set!

Snow Days Without Children

Snowy yard and driveway with houses across the street, seen from a window

I’ve had two different inclement weathers days off work this past week, which made me nostalgic for the snow days of yore when my kids were young. Sure, there was some inconvenience involved, but also so much magic and fun. I loved sledding, snowball fights and sculpting creatures to decorate our yard.

I admit, I also realize I took for granted the level of energy I had back then. The work of getting through winter takes more out of me now. But I still want to enjoy it. I wonder how weirdly people would take it if I showed up alone at one of the popular sledding hills in town all on my own, just this 60-year-old woman.

I’m still healthy and strong enough to wield a shovel. But the big yard where the kids could play when we bought our house came with a long stretch of sidewalk that takes a while to dig out. We have a shared driveway with an apartment building, and the owners hire someone to remove snow. However, for the Sunday/Monday weather event, he had equipment problems, which meant a huge mess at the end of the drive where the city snowplows repeatedly left a lumpy, frozen wall, and our neighbor with a large pickup kept driving through it.

Piles of rutted snow at the end of a driveway — Where the driveway ends you’ll find snowplow debris there.

I knew if we were to get our own cars out I had to move mountains before the overnight Monday freeze. My husband was wrapped up in telework deadlines while my son was under the weather. And I don’t believe any of the next-door tenants own shovels. So this heavy labor fell to me. I took a break for a photo about halfway through the job. After 90 minutes, I finally had it passable for cars.

Smoothed down snow over driveway, with footprints.

After that, my arms were jelly, and I only wanted to sit quietly with a cup of tea.

Along about Thursday night, here came a second snowstorm, one that kept accumulating all Friday morning. For that one, the apartment owners found someone who had a heavy-duty truck with a plow on front. He got the apartment lot and driveway passable pretty quickly. But in the process, he walled in all egress points from our house. After the snow stopped, I went out our side door believing I only had to clear our porch steps and front walkway, but encountered this:

Wall of plowed snow chunks blocking a walkway

Fortunately, it was fresh with no melt and refreeze, so not tooooo difficult to work through. And then there was the wall blocking the front walkway from our porch to the drive and the wall built up behind our cars at the edge or our carport.

Snow piled up behind three cars — That snow wall is higher than it looks.

This all turned into another hour and a half session. However, the temperature was perfect for being outdoors in snow – right around 30 degrees with no wind. I was pretty tuckered again, but not so much I didn’t consider at least making a small snowperson.

However, I decided our block was represented well enough by the neighbors’ large one.